Lately, I have been receiving various queries from the wannabes and existing authors and the most frequent questions were ‘Should we participate in a paid anthology?’, ‘Are anthologies good for our writing career?’, ‘Is an anthology worth paying for?’, ‘What are the benefits of participating in an Anthology?’ etc.

Well, I being an author understand that it is really difficult for the writers to trust on anthologies and that too when they are struggling to Start/LiFTtheir career in writing. So here I have the answers to all your questions which would clarify the doubts and will provide you a better understanding about the anthologies.

Who is the organizer of the Anthology?

An author should check out the background of the publishing house/ the person who is organizing the anthology and should verify that the particular person behind all this is not fake. This is very important because your money and effort could go in vain. If the person behind it is not right, you might end-up sacrificing your work/ money and name for someone else.

Damick Publications has the Authors who hold good reputation and thus they get the chance to organize the anthologies. The new bees get to learn a lot of things from the Author organizing such anthologies.

Is the person/ Publishing house organizing the anthology reputed?

The most important thing is to know about the Publishing House/ Publisher who is organising the anthology. There are many vanity publishers (self proclaimed Self publishers) who organise the anthology just to collect the money and publish all the crap that they receive in their email as a participation entry. The purpose of such vanity publishers is to earn huge amount of profits to keep their Vanity house running.

Damick Publications have changed the scenario. The amount collected by us from the anthology participants is used to get the script edited, by experienced editors and to provide feedback to the new bees so that they get to learn about their mistakes and rectify them at the early stage of their writing career. We only select the writing, which is worth getting published and do not print anything and everything for money.

What is the Royalty you receive?

The royalty shall not always be calculated in monetary terms. It can be in any form like Education, Experience, Participation Certificate, Complimentary Copies, etc.

There are Vanity houses who just give you a few complimentary copies and a participation certificate. They just do this to keep running their stalled printing press.

Damick Publications has redefined the scenario. We not only provide the complementary copies, but also the following –

Participation Certificate: So that the authors can add their work in the resume.

Edited Script: To know where all the authors went wrong and how to rectify his mistakes.

Writing Tips: To equip the authors with expert advice on writing.

Marketing Tips: The tips on how to market their present and future works.

Experience Sharing: The ideas and instructions on how to grow their writing career.

Insight to the publishing Industry: To help the author in exploring and gain in-depth knowledge about the publishing Industry and Publishing Process in India.

Remember the following:

There are authors who have participated in numerous anthologies to create a world record of participating in highest number of anthologies.

People who cannot write a full-fledged novel should start their writing career with a good anthology.

Themes for all the analogies are different and hence you get to write on different topics.

The author organizing the anthology should have good reach on social media otherwise your anthology might fail.

Participate in the anthology where you get to learn something, mere participation in any anthology fetches nothing.

Try to drive sales for your anthology; this will create a buzz among your peer group.

An anthology is a good way to connect with the authors of similar interest.

The readers of fellow participants get connected to you and might follow you for a lifetime.

The Publishing house which is publishing you would know you personally and might provide Discounts/ Offers/ Free slots/ Promotional offers/ Giveaways/ Referrals.